The Psychological Record
https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-019-00354-5
THEORETICAL ARTICLE
Subjectivity in the Human Sciences
Steven R. Brown 1
# Association for Behavior Analysis International 2019
Abstract
Subjectivity is ubiquitous and implies perspectives that range in scope from the intrapersonal (as in individual musings and
daydreams) to the intercultural (as in communication between and among identities) and in sophistication from the inchoate
babblings of infants to the theoretical pronouncements of philosophers and mathematicians. Q methodology is a philosophical
and conceptual framework that, in tandem with its technical and analytical procedures, provides the basis for a science of
subjectivity that is applicable across all humanities and sciences as well as their extensions into public policy. This article presents
the basic principles and procedures of Q methodology (rooted in the fundamentals of factor-analytic developments of the past
century) and demonstrates its applicability to a variety of subject-matter domains, including literary interpretation, strategic
planning and decision making, scientific creativity, program evaluation, and the intensive analysis of single cases.
Q methodology was introduced in 1935 by British physicist/
psychologist William Stephenson (1902–1989) and was
intended to serve as the basis for a science of subjectivity,
but it has now been more than 30 years since his passing
and so few in the current generation of psychologists are likely
familiar with his ideas, which were not all that well-known
even to his own generation. Moreover, although 24 of his
more than 150 scholarly publications appeared in The
Psychological Record between 1961 and 1988, a good many
others were published in a variety of other journals and chapters so that many of his central ideas are not to be found in a
central location since the appearance of his The Study of
Behavior: Q-Technique and Its Methodology (Stephenson,
1953).
At the risk of redundancy, therefore, a major purpose of this
article is to reintroduce several of Stephenson’s major ideas
and concepts, including Q-methodological principles and
practices that have continued to evolve more recently, and to
show their applicability to a variety of subject areas across the
human sciences in general. There are several chapter-length
Revised from a presentation at the Thirteenth International Conference on
Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, July 25–27, 2018, Granada, Spain. The
author benefited from comments from James Good, Martin Jencius, and
Noel W. Smith, and especially from extended discussions with Bryan
Midgley.
* Steven R. Brown
sbrown@kent.edu
1
Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA
introductions to Q methodology along with an increasing
number of encyclopedia entries (e.g., Bambery & Porcerelli,
2010; Brown & Good, 2010), but these typically focus on a
specific subject domain or on technical accouterments of the
methodology rather than, as in the recent article by Midgley
and Delprato (2017), on its more abstract and conceptual
foundations to which this article gives prominence and which
were among Stephenson’s chief concerns. In this regard, this
article can be considered a call to return to the foundations of
Q methodology.
Phenomenon
The term subjectivity refers to the things that we say—silently
to ourselves as in reveries or publicly to others as in
conversation—from our own vantage point, and excluding
that which is objective. It is an objective fact that Earth turns
and that birds fly, but if someone asserts the beauty of a sunset
(or man’s inhumanity to man, or the superiority of classical
compared to popular music, or the reality of life after death,
etc.), we have crossed over into the realm of opinion and
conjecture. Moreover, objective facts are true and independent
of my or anyone else’s will. That 2 + 2 = 4, for instance, or that
water boils at 212°F requires no sponsor; subjective remarks,
on the other hand, require someone to express them: It is I who
claim that the sunset is beautiful, not you, and so this avowal is
subjective to me and in this regard we say that it is selfreferential. Or you may assert the inhumanity of man, which
Psychol Rec
is subjective to you, whether or not I agree with you. In sum,
there are right answers when it comes to facts, but none when
it comes to opinions, which cannot be proved right or wrong
and consequently are not subject to proof or refutation: they
can only be asserted, but this does not preclude measurement.
It is, of course, the case that uncontested truths at one point in
time can become controversial, as in the current debate about
climate change in the United States, and also that settled truths
can exist alongside pockets of opposition, as in the existence
of the Flat Earth Society, but this simply means that the line
between subjective and objective shifts with context. Even
members of the Flat Earth Society will argue over fine points.
Principles
Monism The term subjectivity carries diverse connotations,
such as point of view, distortion, bias, and emotion (Sabini
& Silver, 1982), many of which imply a dualism between
events on the surface and an internal world, and frequently
carry the assumption that the former is controlled by or has its
origins in the latter. In the popular 1960s song Georgy Girl, for
instance, the folk group The Seekers sing, “Hey There!
Georgy girl / There's another Georgy deep inside,” and this
way of thinking has wide currency in a culture that not so long
ago entertained inner demons as causes of human action along
with exorcism as a procedure for expelling them, and although
the idea of demons has little contemporary popularity, the
mode of thought that supported it has not been thoroughly
expunged. Cognitive structures, feelings, attitudes, and other
internal causes, for instance, are thought to be as real as
demons used to be and to be both responsible for much of
what we say and do and accessible only by fMRI,
introspection, and related procedures; and the traits and
variables thought to explain behavior are evidenced only
indirectly by the hundreds of tests available from a
voluminous assessment industry.
In contrast to dualism, monism presumes that mental
events and action are not bifurcated, but occur within the same
nonisolated space, a view shared earlier by Dewey and
Bentley (1949) and Stephenson (1984), and more recently
by Noë (2009) and Smith (2016). Skinner (1975) expressed
a similar view when he asserted that we do not strike out
because we are angry; rather, we both strike and feel angry
at the same time (and for reasons embedded in the environment, he went on to say). There is no realm of mental life that
stands apart from behavior and guides its movements. When
we assert the self-referentiality of the phrase “the sunset is
beautiful,” therefore, we do not imply that there is a substantive self that is located somewhere, like a cognitive structure
or some other mental agent; we merely mean (at least implicitly) that “I think that the sunset is beautiful,” or that “In my
judgment . . . ,” or “From my point of view the sunset is
beautiful.”
Consciring This term received renewed attention in an essay
by theologian C. S. Lewis (1960) and has been incorporated
into communication theory by Stephenson (1980), and it is
connected etymologically to conscience. It has its origins in
reference to knowledge (from the Latin scio), in particular to
knowledge that is shared (con), as when two people share a
secret; i.e., are mutually aware. Consciousness is related, but
is of more recent vintage and lacks the association with sharing, as in Descartes’s cogito (self-reflected awareness of one’s
own thinking). The obvious tie to subjectivity is that virtually
the entirety of what is communicated in social conversation is
of a shared nature for those who belong to the same culture or
society. Everyone in the United States knows about Donald
Trump, about forest fires in the American West, about the
baseball World Series, about the latest literary and motion
picture sensations, and other topics that populate the daily
newspapers and the evening news, and these are the issues
that become the focal point of neighborly gossip and subjective communicability. At a more micro-level, astrophysicists
as a specialized society are knowledgeable and communicable
about the stars, and members of street-corner gangs are equally conversant about the knowledge that they share and the
specialized language through which they express it, which
may be inaccessible to those outside the subcultural
membership.
Concourse The concept of concourse is related to conscire and
is traceable to Cicero, whose concursus referred to a gathering
or running together, as when Rome’s senators assembled to
discuss the issues of the day. The body of talk about any topic
constitutes the concourse of communicability about that topic
(Stephenson, 1978), and it is voluminous and, in principle,
infinite in magnitude: It is impossible to exhaust all that can
be said about anything. The facts (information) associated
with an event or topic are finite, but what can be said subjectively about those facts (communication) is unlimited. There
are typically many tributaries that converge in concourse and
contribute to its form and content.
Field The concept of field (as in electromagnetic and gravitational fields) is one of the most important contributions to
science of the 19th century, but the human sciences have been
slow to embrace it. A notable exception is Kantor’s (1959)
interbehavioral field, which can be grasped by considering his
conception of a psychological event––PE = C (k, sf, rf, hi, st,
md), where sf represents the stimulus function of an object, rf
the response function of the organism, hi the history of past
object↔organism interactions, st the immediate situation, and
md the medium (e.g., light and sound waves) that brings organism and object into contact with one another. The symbol k
stands for the specificity principle (that every interaction is
unique), and C holds that all of the above functions constitute
an interactive field of interdependencies that cannot be
Psychol Rec
reduced to any one of its components, with causality thereby
giving way to probabilism (Hayes & Fryling, 2018; Smith,
2006). Field conditions are fully compatible with the previous
principles inasmuch as they imply that subjectivity arises as a
consequence of the particular interactions of persons with
things (including other persons), with consciring and concourse emerging as a function of common experiences.
Operantcy Operational definitions are legion in the human
sciences and consist of measurements prescribed to give
meaning to concepts. By anxiety, for example, is meant scoring above a certain level on a test designed to measure it. The
temporal sequence is salient: first the concept, then the behavioral measurements that specify what is meant by it. An
operant, by way of contrast, consists of “a set of acts”
(Skinner, 1953, p. 65), as when an organism turns its head
or takes a step: these head-turnings or step-takings are classes
of behavior, and the number of times that the organism engages in these common events under natural conditions is its
operant level. Subjective behavior is operant inasmuch as it
occurs naturally within an environment—it is pure behavior
and in no way dependent upon test constructions or indicative
in a reductionistic way of some variable other than itself—and
an advantage of observing subjectivity in terms of its intrinsic
activities is that it keeps descriptions, interpretations, and concepts close to actual operations and without intrusions by the
scientist.
mind has little sympathy, and yet there is a sense of
infinite longing. . . . The style seems rather exaggerated.
. . . Its appeal is entirely sentimental, and the subject is
one of the most hackneyed. Nearly every popular song
deals with the same topic. . . . The triviality of the sentiment is equaled only by the utter puerility of the versification. . . . The simplicity, accuracy, and justness of
the expression somehow alters the focus: What might
have been mere sentiment becomes valuable; the
strength of the underlying feeling becomes apparent
through the sincerity. . . . The whole comparison between childhood’s Sunday evenings and passionate
manhood is cheap, i.e., it’s too easy and also unfair both
to childhood and manhood. . . . The subject matter is
appealing: The picture given in the first verse is vivid
and original.
The poem constitutes the stimulus in Kantor’s psychological event, and words being the way they are, there are numerous connotations (sf) associated with practically every word of
the poem, and these meanings have the potential to engage
with a wide variety of responses (rf), depending in part on the
readers’ prior experiences with poetry in general (hi) as well as
with the individual words themselves. Some degree of idiosyncrasy (k) is inescapable and all of these potentialities interact in the behavioral field (C). Only eight comments are reported above––each subjective, none a matter of fact––but the
concourse extends to infinity.
The Science
Q methodology is a general term that incorporates a technique
for gathering data, a statistical method for analyzing the data,
and a conceptual and philosophical framework that together
constitute the basis for a science of subjectivity par excellence.
Technical details are spelled out elsewhere (for a condensation,
see Brown, 1993). More abstract principles and concepts are
elaborated in the following pages.
Concourse Q methodology has its foundations in concourse
(see above), i.e., in the corpus of subjective communicability
about a particular topic. Consider as an illustration the matter
of literary interpretation, in this case the interpretation of a
poem. The particular poem in question is of little consequence
(for details, consult Brown & Mathieson, 1990) in that virtually any poem could have prompted a volume of verbal commentary such as the following outpouring gathered from several readers (taken from Richards, 1929, pp. 104–117):
I feel hypnotized by the long boomy lines. But the noise
when I stop myself being hypnotized seems disproportionate to what’s being said. . . . I can’t decide about this
poem—it portrays something with which the modern
Representative design Given the voluminous character of
concourse, some strategy is required to reduce it to convenient
size for purposes of systematic observation, much as a pathologist takes just a sliver of diseased tissue to place under a
microscope or a space probe focuses on a circumscribed area
of the galaxy. The concept that Stephenson adopted for this
purpose was that of Brunswik’s (1949) representativeness,
i.e., of drawing from the concourse a sample of statements
(called a Q sample) that is representative of the universe of
discourse, analogous to drawing a sample of persons from a
population. This is conventionally achieved by relying upon
principles of experimental design advanced by Fisher (1935)
by selecting statements from the concourse according to a
specific plan, as shown for this particular illustration in
Table 1, which makes explicit that we wish to include statements that are evaluative of the poem (i.e., positive toward it,
negative, or mixed) and at the same time address common
Table 1
Q-sample structure for study of poetic interpretation
Effects
Levels
(A) Evaluation
(B) Barriers
(a) positive
(d) emotion
(b) negative
(e) technique
n
(c) mixed/neither
(f) sense/intent
3
3
Psychol Rec
barriers to understanding––e.g., appropriate or inappropriate
emotional reactions, concern with poetic technique (such as
meter, rhyme scheme, etc.), and sense or overt meaning. This
factorial design gives rise to 3 × 3 = 9 combinations, namely:
(ad) It runs an appalling risk of sentimentality and yet
seems to have escaped all offensiveness: a considerable
achievement.
(ae) The subject matter is appealing: The picture given
in the first verse is vivid and original.
(af) In the second verse, the poet recognizes the difference between his man’s outlook and his childish outlook, and we share his experience of being “betrayed
back” by “the insidious mastery—.”
(bd) The author has attached an emotion about his mother to music that should arouse very different emotions.
(be) The style seems rather exaggerated.
(bf) The vision of a child sitting under the piano can
move nothing but laughter.
(cd) It is curious that the poet too feels sentimentality
coming upon him—“in spite of myself”—and he gives
way to it entirely.
(ce) The rhythm emphasizes a reflective strain, but the
words are sophisticated—the result is puzzling.
(cf) The poet is trying to get effects the whole time, to
say something out of the common.
most agree” down to “those with which I most disagree,” the
ranking thereby constituting each reader’s operant response
insofar as understanding this particular poem is concerned.
To assist in this task, provision is made of a scale ranging from
+4 (most agree) to –4 (most disagree), along which the statements are sorted, usually in a quasi-normal bell-shaped distribution. (For further details, consult Brown, 1993; McKeown
& Thomas, 2013; Watts & Stenner, 2012.) The process is
entirely subjective: the statements are conjectural (none subject to proof or refutation), hence there is no right or wrong
way in which to complete the Q sort; issues of validity are
therefore inconsequential.
Factor analysis Each Q sort consists of a linear vector of scores
that can be intercorrelated, each correlation indicating the degree of similarity or dissimilarity between each pair of Q sorts.
In the present case of poetic interpretation, n = 8 readers of the
poem gave their interpretations in the form of a Q sort, resulting
in an 8 × 8 correlation matrix, which was then factor analyzed
using the PQMethod software program (Schmolck, 2014). The
factor analysis indicated that there were three different interpretations of the poem (factors A, B, and C, as shown in Table 2),
i.e., that the 30 statements had been Q sorted in three different
ways.2 Readers 1, 2, and 8 assessed the poem similarly (and
therefore comprised factor A), and when their separate Q sorts
were merged into a composite, statements [a] and [b] received
among the highest positive factor scores:
These statements constitute a single replication of the design in Table 1, and a selection of three or four statements for
each of the nine combinations resulted in a representative set
of N = 30 statements.1 The statements are then printed on
cards (one statement per card), resulting in this instance in a
pack of 30 cards for purposes of Q sorting.
Q-sort technique Although Q methodology qua methodology
is not widely known or understood, the Q sort itself (which is
the data-gathering device associated with the methodology) is
well-known and has been used in a number of fields of study,
but unfortunately too often in ways contrary to the intent of its
originator. The Q sort provides a way for individuals to represent their subjective points of view about any topic, e.g.,
about the poem in the above illustration. Given the N = 30
contentions about the poem, the Q sorters represent their own
viewpoints, each modeled as a Q sort. In particular, each participant rank-orders the statements from “those with which I
[a] The simplicity, accuracy, and justness of the expression somehow alters the focus: what might have been
mere sentiment becomes valuable; the strength of the
underlying feeling becomes apparent through the
sincerity.
[b] The striking thing is that the poet knows quite well
that this reversion to a childhood incident is sentimental,
but he does not try to make capital out of the sentiment.
These are only two of many other statements whose scores,
when compared to the scores for the same statements in factors B and C, indicated that factor A enjoyed the poem and
embraced statements that praised it while assigning negative
scores to statements that were unfavorable. Factor B, by way
of contrast, was critical of the poem as indicated by statements
[c] and [d] embraced by readers 3, 4, and 5 in Table 2:
1
It is important to point out that the a priori structuring of Q samples is not for
testing, i.e., unlike the case in rating scales, no effort is made to prove, for
example, that a statement unequivocally belongs in category (ad). The purpose
of the design in Table 1 is simply to help facilitate the drawing of a diverse set
of statements from the concourse. This task can be helped along by selecting
statements from each of the nine categories that are as different from one
another as possible, which assists in offsetting the artificial boundaries of the
design. For further details on Q-sample structuring, see Brown, Baltrinic, and
Jencius (in press).
2
Factor analysis is a topic too extensive to address in this brief summary.
Detailed treatment is in Brown (1980) and in a recent discussion among
Akhtar-Danesh (2016), Braswell (2016), and Brown (2016). Note that the
number of factors that emerge in any study can range widely—from one only
(if all participants respond in a uniform way) to a large number (if responses
are more idiosyncratic)—and depends solely on the actual performances of the
participants. That the studies reported in this article all produce three factors is
entirely fortuitous.
Psychol Rec
Table 2 Poetic
interpretations
Summary
Factor Loadings*
Rs
A
B
C
2
(83)
-07
-22
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
(71)
-21
-12
09
-19
-06
(50)
27
(68)
(67)
(67)
-03
31
(-52)
-04
-21
28
21
(57)
(59)
28
*Significant loadings in parentheses, decimals omitted.
[c] Its appeal is entirely sentimental, and the subject is
one of the most hackneyed. Nearly every popular song
deals with the same topic.
[d] In stanza 2, "the tinkling piano our guide"—"guide"
I don't think a good word. Too obviously used for the
sake of rhyme.
Factor C (readers 6 and 7) was likewise critical of the poem, but for different reasons than B: factor C was not bothered
by the sentimentality that irritated B, but by the poet’s reverence for the past. As the factor scores revealed, factor C joined
B in agreeing with statement [e], but stood alone of the three
factors in agreeing with [f]:
[e] A lot of emotion is being stirred up about nothing
much. The writer seems to love feeling sobby about his
pure childhood and to enjoy thinking of himself as a
world-worn wretch.
[f] This poem is false. One worships the past in the
present, for what it is, not for what it was. To ask for
the renewal of the past is to ask for its destruction.
It is noted in passing that participant no. 8 is a
mixed case––partially in sympathy with the factor A
assessment and partially in sympathy with a view that
is the opposite of factor B’s evaluation of the poem
(hence the negative factor loading). Factor B is not
genuinely bipolar due to participant 8’s mixed status.
A more purely bipolar factor is discussed in the study
associated with Table 6 below.
The above is just the tip of the iceberg insofar as the interpretation of the factors is concerned, but the main takeaway
from a methodological standpoint is that the application of
factor analysis to the responses disclosed three distinct reactions to the poem, which, like x-ray plates, served to reveal the
underlying structure of the concourse and explains why it has
the form and content that it does.
As a framework for the scientific study of subjectivity, the
principles and operations of Q methodology run sabre and
sheath with the conception of subjectivity elaborated at the
outset (i.e., as the communicability of opinions and perspectives on any topic); for instance, about the meaning of a poem.
All statements in the Q sample are, for the most part, matters
of common knowledge and are self-referential in that one’s
own self is at the center of meaning: each statement takes on
the meaning and salience (from +4 to –4) attributed to it by
me, the Q sorter. The self is therefore an axiomatic feature of a
monistic space rather than a dualistic agent that exists in mental space and that coordinates the Q-sorting in a separate behavioral space, the latter then providing evidence for inferring
the former. All of the various intermingling parts––the Q statements, the various meanings of the words comprising them,
the judgments of their respective saliences, the past histories
of the persons performing the Q sorts, and the vagaries of the
immediate situation––are part of an interacting whole, or field,
in which there are no independent variables and no dependent
variables, yet this field can be shown to have structure and
form, as testified to by the emergence of operant Q factors. Q
methodology provides the basis for an objective study of subjectivity: The Q sort as provided is itself subjective, but it is
also objective in the sense that each Q sort is the participant’s
own, independent of whatever influences can be traced to the
investigator.
Select Applications
An illustration of Q methodology applied to literary interpretation has already been presented in the course of demonstrating Q’s mechanics and there is really no limit to its applicability because subjectivity permeates each and every corner of
human activity. The presentations that follow are necessarily
terse given space limitations and are intended merely to demonstrate the range of practical use.
Decision Making
Strategic planning Decision making usually has its origins in
a problem, i.e., with a discrepancy between an actual and a
desired state of affairs. The question posed to decision makers
is, “What are we to do?,” in response to which problemsolvers recommend various solutions, the sum total of which,
in Q methodology, constitute the concourse of communicability encircling the problem under consideration. In one illustrative instance, members of a university wishing to improve the
standing of their department offered suggestions such as the
following:
Psychol Rec
&
&
&
&
&
Reduce course loads for the most productive faculty.
Initiate an in-service program designed to expose faculty
to new ideas.
Establish a colloquium for purposes of sharing research
ideas.
Hold an internal competition to financially reward research proposals.
Assign graduate assistants to faculty who publish the
most.
And many more, from which N = 40 were eventually presented in a Q sort for rank-ordering from “apt to be beneficial”
(+4) to “apt to be unbeneficial” (–4). The factor analysis of the
Q sorts resulted in three factors that mirrored recognizable
cleavages within the department, but consensus on certain
issues was also present in those recommendations that received high-positive scores across all the factors. Once presented with this undeniable evidence of agreement, a previously conflicted faculty was able to pass legislation instituting
a colloquium series, to create an internal competition for research proposals, and to agree to reduce teaching loads for its
most productive members (for further details, consult Durning
& Brown, 2007).
Intractable problems An important conclusion that emerges
from the above illustration is that the possibility for agreement
is often obscured during periods of conflict until measurements render those agreements visible, and this is especially
the case for intractable (or so-called “wicked”) problems when
Q factors are frequently bipolar, with some participants ranking the statements in virtually the reverse order of other participants. An illustration is provided by Van Eeten (2001), in
which large segments of Dutch society were sharply divided
over whether or not to expand the Amsterdam airport, but the
application of Q methodology to stakeholders indicated to
government decision makers that solutions to problems that
had polarized development and environmental interests were
being recommended by other Q factors that were otherwise
being drowned out by the media dominance of the major
parties in conflict. Widening the discussion to include the
marginalized voices eased the intractability. In a related vein,
Asah, Bengston, Wendt, and Nelson (2012) demonstrate the
advantages of Q methodology in helping to reframe a contentious issue (the use of all-terrain recreation vehicles in state
forest lands) so that conflicted parties could more clearly see
the views of opponents, thereby reducing the impact of misperceptions in public discussions.
Desire and feasibility An article by Zhang, Satlykgylyjova,
Almuhajiri, and Brown (2013) demonstrates how to work
around a potential conflict between what is desired (as a matter of public policy) on the one hand and what it is possible to
achieve. In this instance, international students at a large U.S.
university were asked what changes they would wish to be
instituted that would improve their academic lives. Face-toface interviews with graduate students in a variety of academic
departments produced a concourse comprised of a great many
suggestions, a sampling of which, when administered as Q
sorts, resulted in three factors. Factor A was mostly concerned
with equity––in tuition, in on-campus work opportunities, and
in graduate stipends among departments. Students comprising
factor B were newly arrived in the United States and wanted
the university to accommodate to their needs—for introductory information, for more qualified instructors to teach English
classes, and for quiet spaces for meditation and prayer (these
students were mainly from Muslim countries). Students defining factor C were interested in cultural immersion, but not
assimilation: they planned to return home after college and
wanted to take as many experiences and as much information
as possible with them; hence, factor C was not interested in
being treated equally (factor A), nor did they wish for the
university to bend to their needs (factor B).
The students involved in this study had been asked to rank
the statements from approve (+4) to disapprove (–4), but for
their part, a group of university administrators tasked with
working with international graduate students was asked to
assess the same Q-sort items in terms of their feasibility (from
+4 to –4), which resulted in a single factor indicating that
administrators were largely of one mind when it came to what
could realistically be done. The factor scores from the three
first-order factors (A, B, and C) plus the single administrative
factor were then entered into a second-order analysis that resulted in a 4 × 4 correlation matrix and the three second-order
factors shown in Table 3.
As the second-order analysis clearly shows, what the administrators considered to be feasible was aligned primarily
with the desires of the newly arrived factor B students, i.e., the
first-order factors B and Admin were both strongly associated
with second-order factor II: students in factor B were most in
need of assistance and the administrators regarded their demands as most feasible. Administrators were not opposed to
the demands of factors A and C (.30 and .27 on factors I and
III, respectively), but many of those demands were simply not
practical: from a political standpoint, the university could not
Table 3
2nd-order analysis
1st Order Factors
A
B
C
Admin
2nd Order Factors
I
II
III
96
–21
–04
30
–01
87
11
72
–04
–02
98
27
*Loadings in boldface significant; decimals to 2 places omitted.
Psychol Rec
equalize in-state and out-of-state tuitions so as to please factor
A, nor could it equalize graduate-assistant stipends across all
departments; it could, however, institute an academic orientation (comparable to the already existing social orientation) and
establish quiet spaces in various buildings where students
could meditate and pray, which were among recommendations subsequently implemented.
The number of Q-methodology studies involving stakeholder groups has risen in recent years as it has become increasingly obvious that the clarification of subjective preferences helps in reaching decisions that are regarded as legitimate by all parties involved (Brown, 2019). All three of the
previous illustrations emerged from conflictual situations that
made it difficult for contending parties to see the possibilities
for cooperative avenues, that is, until measurements were made
and opportunities for collaboration were rendered ostensible.
Of course, clarifying perspectives does not guarantee cooperation and may only strengthen dissensus by making grievances
more overt (e.g., Ascher & Brown, 1987; Kroesen & Bröer,
2009; Mattson, Byrd, Rutherford, Brown, & Clark, 2006;
Maxwell & Brown, 1999). That said, enhancing awareness
of nonconflictual possibilities enlarges the range for subsequent discussion and the operation of the voice of reason.
Scientific Creativity
William Stephenson, the inventor of Q methodology, was the
last graduate assistant to Sir Charles Spearman, the inventor of
factor analysis, and both men were interested in creativity––
Spearman (1930) through what today would be referred to as
R methodology, reaching into a central intellective factor and
its measurement, and Stephenson (1985) through Q methodology, which extends into the subjectivity of mass communication and advertising.3 This is of importance inasmuch as
Morçöl (2007) has asserted that “Q methodology is not designed to measure or facilitate creativity” (p. 576), but surely
the opposite is the case, as Thompson (2010) has concluded:
“. . . Q-technique factor analysis is especially suitable for
inquiry about giftedness and creativity” (p. 33).
Contrary to Morçöl’s claim, a few instances already exist of
the use of Q methodology in both the measurement and facilitation of creativity (e.g., Keignaert, 2011; Lynch & Kaufman,
1974; Muñoz-Blanco & Padilla Vargas, 2017; Rutherford,
2014; Tan, Luh, & Kung, 2014; Tan, Tan, Luh, & Kung,
2016), including a detailed study by Tolbert (2017) focused
on encouraging the use of creativity and intuition in the
counseling supervisory relationship. The Q-sample structure
that was eventually employed in Tolbert’s research is shown in
Table 4 and sets creativity against both intuition and logic in a
3 × 4 factorial design that also involved the so-called “four Ps”
of creativity: product, person, process, and place. Statements
were drawn primarily from the scholarly literature and then
revised where necessary to be more apropos the standpoint of
those involved in the supervision of counselors, and four statements were then drawn from the 3 × 4 = 12 combinations of
the design for a Q sample of size N = (3)(4)(4) = 48, examples
of which are as follows:
(cg) If I stay in the same physical location doing the same
role, I can lose my ability to think outside the box. I may
become confined in my ways of thinking and acting.
(af) The ability to see differently helps me to be innovative, especially if I am open to the possibilities of doing
something different or of seeing alternatives.
(bd) My breakthroughs in supervision occur more frequently when I encounter the strange and unfamiliar.
(ce) I often spend time developing my imperfect skills
while I leave my perfected skills to the side. Constant
learning is essential for my development.
As noted previously, reliance on the formal structure in
Table 4 carries no pretentions of validity or reliability comparable to what is claimed of items in rating scales, and it is due
in large part to this misunderstanding that led Block (2008)
and others to issue criticisms. The main purpose of the Qsample structure is to assist the investigator in reducing the
unwieldy volume of statements in the concourse down to a
workable number (the Q sample) so as to enable observation
and analysis (Brown et al., in press). In a science of subjectivity, what matters is not what the statements are asserted to
mean a priori, which conveys an air of objectivity, but what
subjective meanings the participants project onto them in the
course of their Q sortings, i.e., on the pristine character of their
operant responses.
In this instance, a set of n = 20 counselor supervisors provided Q sorts representing the ways in which they carry out
their roles, and the results condensed into three Q factors, two
of which were judged to incorporate a significant degree of
creativity in their role performance. Persons comprising factor
A, for instance, embraced the following statements when describing how they fulfilled their position:
Table 4
Stephenson was distinguished professor of advertising research in the
University of Missouri School of Journalism, and he and many of his students
were deeply involved in the creative side of advertising, as in campaign themes
and imagery, e.g., in the naming of the Studebaker Lark automobile
(Stephenson, 1979, 1985).
a
b
c
ad
ae
af
ag
bd
be
bf
bg
cd
ce
cf
cg
Creativity
d
Person
Product
f
Process
g
Place
e
3
Q-sample structure for creativity*
*From Tolbert (2017, p. 78)
Intuition
Logic
Psychol Rec
If something is not working, then something new should
be tried. “We’ve always done this” is not a good reason
to continue on a path. I try to reframe problems to generate new possibilities so I can experiment to see what
works best for the situation at that time. . . . I try to be
courageous in the face of past and potential failures because failures help me learn. I believe transgression,
persistence, and creative discontent help to solve problems; however, I recognize that such practices entail the
possibility of failing again. . . . I have to trust both my
gut and know-how to be the most effective supervisor I
can be. I cannot rely on just one or the other. . . . The
ability to see differently helps me to be innovative, especially if I am open to the possibilities of doing something different or of seeing alternatives.
Hence, factor A does not stick with the tried and true, is not
afraid to fail, trusts in gut reactions, and is willing to see things
in a different light while providing supervision to counselors.
Moreover, this group of supervisors rejects the following
statements:
I prefer questions that have right answers. That way, I
know what I have to do to succeed. . . . I am suspicious
of rapid cognition and intuition. I have found that time
and effort must go into the making of any and all
decisions.
The factor A supervisor does not believe that every problem has a single right answer and that arriving at solutions
must of necessity be prolonged and arduous. It should be
noted that Tolbert (2017) supplemented the Q sorts with
post-sorting interviews during which participants were enabled to elaborate on their styles of supervision, thereby
adding narrative evidence of the involvement of creative and
intuitive dimensions.4
Factor B’s philosophy of supervision was likewise open to
influences involving a mingling of intuition and creativity, as
indicated in those statements to which this group of individuals assigned the highest scores:
I try to use intuition as a guide, a tool, a relationship
builder, and an additional source of intel in my work. .
. . I have to trust both my gut and know-how to be the
most effective supervisor I can be. I cannot rely on just
one or the other. . . . Intuition tells me where to look next
for the answers I seek. . . . I find all forms of creativity to
4
It is also worth noting that Tolbert (2017) supplemented the set of 20 empirical Q sorts with theoretical Q sorts (e.g., a Q sort simulating pure creative
thought, another simulating pure intuitive thought, and another pure logical
thought) that served as conceptual templates in the resulting factor matrix.
have merit, regardless of whether the form is tangible or
intangible, or a product, person, process, or place.
A third factor was also in evidence in the data, but inspection of the factor scores indicated that it placed less emphasis
on creativity and so was dropped from further consideration.
Tolbert’s (2017) strategy from the outset was not to place
exclusive emphasis on the emergent Q factors themselves,
but to use Q as a screening device for selecting participants
for a more detailed grounded-theory analysis. Q methodology
in this instance provided the valuable service of demonstrating
the existence not of a single creative approach, but of multiple
orthogonal approaches for more thorough inspection. In particular, relatively pure cases of creative/intuitive thinking
(based on the magnitude of loadings on factors A and B) were
selected for more in-depth grounded theory interviews designed to clarify the consequences of creativity in the
counseling–supervisory relationship.
Program Evaluation
A college of education had for years been hosting outstanding
high school teachers from abroad (under the sponsorship of
the U.S. Department of State) who spent a semester taking
courses at the college, visiting area high schools, learning
about the latest technologies, and forging plans for
implementing what they had learned once they returned to
their respective homelands. After a suitable length of time,
these international teachers were queried about how they
had progressed by responding to a questionnaire containing
a number of prompts––What challenges did you face? How
did you overcome these challenges? What successes have you
experienced? What recognitions have you received? and so
forth––to which each of the program alums responded in an
open-ended way. During the course of a decade, hundreds of
comments had been collected (and dutifully stored in Excel
files) and concern had mounted about how to make sense of
all of this narrative information (of a highly subjective and
often idiosyncratic kind) and reach conclusions about the effectiveness of the program and how it might be improved.
All of this verbiage, of course, is what we now recognize as
a concourse of subjective communicability about “what happened to me when I returned home and tried to implement all
of the new ideas and technologies to which I had been introduced,” and the task was one of imposing systematics onto
this inchoate mass of thoughts and expressions. Inasmuch as
the theme of the program was one of educational leadership, it
was determined that the well-known leadership framework of
Kouzes and Posner (1987), as summarized in Table 5, could
provide a useful beginning. Given the more than 500 statements of opinion abstracted from the alums’ essays, an initial
step was taken to determine the extent to which each statement
comported with one or the other of Kouzes and Posner’s five
Psychol Rec
leadership practices––of modeling the way, inspiring vision,
challenging the process, enabling others, and “encouraging
the heart” through recognition and celebration. Once the statements were distributed among the five practices, decisions
were then made concerning into which of the two commitments each statement best fit. Five statements were eventually
taken from each of the 10 categories to comprise a Q sample
of N = 50, with the following displaying one replication of the
design in Table 5:
Clarify values: I have become more tolerant and respectful of others’ point of view.
Set the example: I am more willing to try new approaches to teaching.
Envision the future: Teachers, faculty, and students are
now more aware of the importance of integrating technology into the classroom.
Enlist others: I have tried to incorporate new technology
into my work and have urged colleagues to become
involved in our growing ICT culture.
Search for opportunities: I have tried to advance my
ideas by becoming more involved with teachers and
professional organizations.
Experiment and take risks: I teach about other cultures
in an effort to encourage educational paradigm shifts.
Foster collaboration: I am now able to help teachers and
even the government in building international relationships for improving education.
Strengthen others: I have been successful in stimulating
critical and reflective thinking about teaching practices
among my colleagues.
Recognize contributions: I seem to have created interest
in technology integration and am viewed as a champion
for these new ideas.
Celebrate values and victories: I have been fortunate to
be supported by administrators who have given me the
opportunity to share my new ideas.
Given that the program alums were spread around the
globe, Q sorts were obtained using an online platform and
more than 40 responses were collected, the factor analysis
of which resulted in three factors. Factor A was populated
by alums from a number of countries (Bangladesh, Brazil,
Ghana, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Philippines), but what
tied them together was obviously not country of origin,
but their enthusiasm for technology and their autonomy as
teachers in educational environments that were far from
encouraging. Note, for example, some of factor A’s most
highly embraced statements (scores to the left for factors
A, B, and C, respectively):
Note that factor A is joined by factor C when it comes to
enthusiasm for teaching in general (e.g., statement Nos. 6, 11,
17), but only factor A is enthusiastic about technology (Nos.
2, 4, 16). But factor A’s personal autonomy (unsupported by
+4
0
–2
(2)
+4
+1
+3
(6)
+4
0
+4
(17)
+3
+1
–3
(4)
+3
–2
+3
(11)
+3
–3
–3
(16)
I have tried to incorporate new technology
into my work and have urged colleagues
to become involved in our growing ICT
[information and communications
technology] culture.
I am more willing to try new approaches
to teaching.
I have developed the strength to face
challenges in my workplace and use that
strength to help others.
I am happy to be able to share my
experiences with colleagues and students
and glad to see them improve in using
technology.
More than before, I now tend to suggest
creative solutions.
I seem to have created interest in
technology integration and am viewed as
a champion for these new ideas.
the environment) comes to light in terms of those statements
with which these individuals disagree:
Back in their home countries, factor A alums have been
successful in incorporating new technologies into their own
activities and have come to be regarded as technological
champions, but as a measure of their personal autonomy, they
–4
–4
+2
(21)
–4
+3
0
(29)
–4
–4
–2
(36)
–3
–1
–1
(40)
I am invited to speak to other schools and
teachers about my knowledge and
experiences.
Implementing new technology in the
classroom requires overcoming multiple
challenges at the individual and system
levels.
I have been fortunate to be supported by
administrators who have given me the
opportunity to share my new ideas.
I have been successful in stimulating
critical and reflecting thinking about
teaching practices among my colleagues.
seem to have received little in the way of encouragement: they
have not been invited to speak about their new knowledge
(No. 21), have not been supported by administrators (No.
36), and have not been successful in influencing their colleagues. Their professional gratifications have apparently
been acquired primarily through interpersonal relations
(No. 4).
For the former program participants comprising factor B,
the program experience was important from the standpoint of
personal growth and empowerment. The PQMethod software
program singles-out statements that distinguish each factor
Psychol Rec
Table 5 Q-sample structure
(from Kouzes and Posner)
Practices
Commitments
1. Model the Way
2. Inspire a Shared Vision
3. Challenge the Process
4. Enable Others to Act
5. Encourage the Heart
Clarify values
Envision the future
Search for opportunities
Foster collaboration
Recognize contributions
from the others, and those statements to which factor B gave
significantly higher scores than did factors A and C indicate
that B more than the others returned home a more fully developed person:
(34) The program empowered me to dream bigger and
opened me to the reality that, as an educator, I have a lot
to learn and a lot to share, too. . . . (46) I have learned to
be a risk-taker—to move out of my comfort zone and be
willing to “jump into the fire.” This is how you find out
whether you can make mistakes and know how to fix
them. . . . (48) I look for opportunities to share my new
ideas, materials, and teaching strategies with colleagues
by opening dialogue with them in meetings and informal discussions. . . . (43) I am anxious to participate in
projects with other educators or others in the alumni
network.
Although empowered and anxious to open a new chapter of
professional life, factor B also reveals a realistic awareness of
potential challenges (both interpersonal and organizational)
that stand in the way. Like factor A, factor B is also largely
bereft of institutional and collegial support and therefore appears optimistic but at the same time uncertain about how to
direct that optimism.
The factor scores indicate that factor C has experienced the
most success of the three factors, having been recipient of
awards and invitations to speak and having enjoyed opportunities to be of assistance to students, colleagues, and government agencies. From the standpoint of implementation, therefore, these factor C program alums are probably in least need
of additional assistance from program administrators.
The purpose of this program evaluation was to clarify the
different kinds of experiences that program participants had
upon return to their home institutions, of which analysis has
identified three. This condensation constitutes a remarkable
simplification when compared to the mountain of undifferentiated commentary initially contained in the questionnaire responses from prior program graduates. What Q methodology
brings to program evaluation is synthesis. Responses to questionnaire scales, whether closed- or open-ended, constitute
discrete reactions of unknown connection to other reactions,
but the relative importance of each within a particular
Set the example
Enlist others
Experiment and take risks
Strengthen others
Celebrate values and victories
perspective becomes apparent when these responses are
placed in a Q sort, which then enables them to become synthesized into an overall point of view. Once each viewpoint is
rendered in the form of a Q sort, factor analysis then reveals
the different types that are inherent in the program experience,
and these types then point in the direction of the next steps that
might be taken in program development. In the above
illustration, for example, those program alumni comprising
the successful factor C can be left to proceed under their
own steam while attention can then be directed to the more
troubled factors A and B and to programmatic efforts that
might be directed toward rendering their efforts at
implementation more successful.
Intensive Analysis of Single Cases
One of the features of Q methodology of which few users take
advantage is its capacity systematically to examine single
cases and to apply the penetrating power of factor analysis
to the study of individual lives. Take as an example the issue
of mindfulness and of the increasing concern with solitude in
contemporary life. In this illustrative case, a short essay by
Nance and Mays (2013) covered many of the essentials and
had the virtue of reporting the views of actual interviewees
that served as a concourse from which comments such as the
following were drawn:
&
&
&
&
I find solitude beneficial and necessary for my well-being.
[positive]
I must confess that I have a somewhat negative view of
people who spend time alone by choice––the loners, the
odd birds, the hermits. [negative]
I feel there are benefits from being socially interconnected.
[interconnectedness]
The lines between being by myself and being with others
have blurred. [mixed]
And so forth, with the four categories in brackets suggesting themselves. Five of each were selected to approximate
representativeness, for a Q sample of N = 20, which is smaller
than usual, but adequate for purposes of the following
demonstration.
Psychol Rec
A single, middle-aged, male student was instructed to operate with the Q sample under several conditions of
instruction. First, he was invited to Q sort the statements from
“most agree” (+3) to “most disagree” (–3) in the usual prescribed, quasi-normal distribution. Second, he was asked to
perform a Q sort as he imagined would be the prevalent view
in society, given that theory often holds that individuals tend
to seek out solitude as a way to withdraw from a noisier and
more boisterous social world. Third, he provided what he
regarded as the best possible view he might have about solitude. Fourth was based on a memory of the most “loudmouthed” person he had ever known and what that person’s
view of solitude probably was. Fifth was what he guessed his
view of solitude would be 20 years hence. Sixth was projective: what he thought that others, in general, perceived his
view to be. Seventh (as a corollary to no. 5) was what he
recalled that his view was when he was half his current age.
Eighth (similar to no. 4), he was asked to recall the person who
he had admired most, and to represent as a Q sort what he
imagined that person’s view of solitude might be. Ninth, a
couple of weeks later he was asked for his own personal view
again, as a kind of check on reliability or for evidence of any
change that might have occurred since the beginning of the
experiment.
The 9 × 9 correlation matrix that this person’s performances created was factor analyzed, resulting in the structure
shown in Table 6, which shows a bipolar factor A––with the
loud person (no. 4) being pictured as the opposite of the self
(no. 1)—plus two other factors. Factor A also contains this
person’s ideal (no. 3), which suggests a degree of self-acceptance, the person’s personal view being regarded as to some
extent an ideal view; it also contains the person’s view of the
future, indicating an intention to maintain the current view. We
can see in the factor scores what this ideal-self view looks like,
the following receiving the highest positive scores:
Table 6
Operant factors
Conditions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Self-1
Society
Ideal
Loud
Future
Others
Past
Admire
Self-2
A
B
C
80
06
75
–68
85
–36
23
95
96
11
22
–28
08
–07
85
78
–11
15
–03
90
05
10
20
02
22
13
00
Factor loadings in bold significant (p < .01); decimals to two places
omitted.
[a] With solitude, I get a better sense of who I am and
why I do some of the things I do. . . . [b] I find solitude
beneficial and necessary for my well-being. . . . [c] To
maximize my potential, I need time alone to process
what has happened when I have been with others. . . .
[d] I need time for centering myself—for reflection,
stress relief, and my overall mental health. . . . [e] I feel
there are benefits from being socially interconnected.
There is healthiness in this viewpoint: not an escape,
but a temporary withdrawal to think things over before
returning to social engagement (statement [c]), which is
also viewed as beneficial (statement [e]). This person
may have had a mentor who modeled this kind of
healthy demeanor (Q sort no. 8). What this person
regards as not me (scores –3, –2) are statements that
are simultaneously thought to positively characterize
the loud-mouth (no. 4), who is apparently something
of a negative role model:
[f] The lines between being by myself and being with
others have blurred. . . . [g] There’s a possibility of kind
of losing my grip on reality if I don’t have regular interactions with people. . . . [h] I feel pressured to be more
interconnected, perhaps due to the popularity of social
media. . . . [i] I would consider it almost a badge of
oddness if I sought out solitude. . . . [j] I must confess
that I have a somewhat negative view of people who
spend time alone by choice––the loners, the odd birds,
the hermits.
This loudmouth is perceived as a person who desperately clings to other people (statement [g]), whose boundary between self and society is somewhat blurred and
enmeshed (statement [f]), who feels pressured to belong
(statement [h]) and is dismissive of those who do withdraw (statements [i] and [j]), and it is this self-view that
the Q sorter rejects.
Factor B is also a part of this person and represents
how he thinks that others view him (no. 6, Table 6) and
what he recalls having been his view of solitude in years
past (no. 7). This view of his previous self includes not
only the following statements, but also [e] and [f] from
the present and not-self, which indicates a degree of continuity between past, present, and future:
[k] It’s not like me to actively make time to be by myself.
I do not intentionally seek out solitude. . . . [l] Due to
social media, I now find it possible to be in contact with
other humans to some degree at almost any time. . . . [m]
I don’t really feel alone when texting or chatting on
Facebook.
Psychol Rec
The past self of factor B was more gregarious and nonintrospective than factor A, and this person apparently thinks
that others for the most part still see him in this way. There
may have been an epiphany in the past, or possibly the influence of a significant other (e.g., no. 8) that led this person to
his current position, i.e., to abandon factor B and to adopt
factor A as a way of life instead. The fact that this person
thinks that others regard him as outwardly like factor B offers
the possibility that B serves as a persona––perhaps a protective garb giving factor A more room to exist.
Note in passing that there is also a factor C that is defined solely by this person’s view of what society’s stance
on solitude is, but description of the first two factors alone
is sufficient to enable a return to more abstract considerations. In this regard, Stephenson (1974, 1980) has proposed at least a dozen Laws of Subjectivity, of which the
following six are most clearly evident in the factor structure
in Table 6:
&
&
&
&
&
James’s Law (named after William James), to the effect
that some things are me and others mine only. In this
instance, this person’s conception of his ideal (no. 3) and
what he expects his view will be in the future (no. 5) are
him due to the fact that they occupy the same factor as his
self (no. 1): they are self-embraced. On the other hand,
what he thinks that others regard his view to be (no. 6)
and what his view was in the past (no. 7) are his only; that
is, they are his own cognitions, which he produced
through his own Q sortings, but they are on factor B and
not the self factor A. He does not identify with them: They
are not me, only mine.
Rogers’s Law (named after Carl Rogers), to the effect that
self (no. 1) and ideal (no. 3), will be congruent under
conditions of adjustment, as they are in this instance: both
are defining for the same factor.
Shibutani’s Law (named for Tamotsu Shibutani), to the
effect that we are influenced by significant others, who
serve as models for emulation or disdain; hence, this person identifies positively with no. 8 and negatively with no.
4, both of whom are strongly associated with self factor A
and likely have been influential in his thinking about how
he wants to be and not be.
Perlin’s Law (named for Seymour Perlin), that changes
can only occur in terms of self-related factors. Hence, this
person was likely only able to transition to factor A (from
his past in factor B) due to an admired person (no. 8) who
was idealized (no. 3)––and a loudmouth (no. 4) who was
counteridealized––each of whom lighted the way so that
this person could see how to change from factor B (no. 7)
to factor A (no. 1).
Taylor’s Law (named for Donald M. Taylor), that self descriptions tend to be consistent through time: Witness the
fact that this person’s self descriptions at time-1 (no. 1)
&
and at time-2 (no. 9) are both defining for factor A, suggesting a high degree of consistency during at least this
brief time span, despite the fact that there is a significant
difference between t1 = .80 and t2 = .96 on factor A (z =
2.35, p < .05) in this particular instance.
Freud’s Law (named, of course, for Sigmund Freud), to
the effect that self-referred factors will be defended. This
law would be in evidence were this person’s view of how
others see him (on factor B, separate from the way in
which he views himself on factor A) judged to be a social
pretense maintained for protective purposes.
Strong cultural influences have led social theorists to
search for explanations for social behaviors by “researching
beneath the surface” (Clarke & Hoggett, 2009) for variables
and processes that can account for observations on the surface.
In most instances, these efforts depend upon strategies such as
introspection, discourse and narrative analysis, free association, countertransference, projective tests, fMRI, and questionnaires along with social-scientific scales (such as MMPI,
16 PF, F-Scale, etc.) that are assumed to provide evidence on
the surface that can then be used as peep-holes into the machinery below. Table 6 can be thought of in this dualistic way,
of course, but it is wholly unnecessary. This person’s Q
sortings were a function of everything that he is––his cognitions, his emotions, his moods, his life history, all of his independent and dependent variables, his physiology, his conscious and preconscious and unconscious systems, his right
brain and left brain, etc. . . . ad infinitum: everything. The
factors that emerged (factors A, B, and C) simply document
his different response functions (Kantor’s rf; see above) that
came into interactive play in relation to the stimulating features of the different conditions, just as light can display granular or undulating properties depending on conditions. He
may be unaware of the factor structure that his own Q sortings
produced and this may be taken as evidence of a psychoanalytic unconscious, but this is an explanation of behavior and
not the behavior itself, and it is neither necessary nor sufficient. The value of theories such as psychoanalysis (or any
other) is not as an explanation, but as a source of propositions
whose testing can lead to interesting findings (e.g., McKeown,
1977).
Conclusions
Definitions have been given, principles asserted, and examples presented, and we return full circle to essentials, namely,
that subjective communicability is the very stuff of life as it is
lived, and that it is about ordinary things––such as our views
about politics, religion, work, leisure time, domestic matters,
popular culture, and so forth––and Q methodology endeavors
to observe all of this as it naturally occurs. Rating scales, by
Psychol Rec
way of contrast, are usually not about ordinary things, but
about such matters as attention deficit, bipolar disorder, fascist
potential, FoMO (fear of missing out), neuroticism, reading
ability, and hundreds of other traits and characteristics that are
not a part of common parlance save in the clinic, lab, and halls
of science. Endeavors such as these often invite verbal responses in response to scale statements, but only as indicators
of something that is objective about the person, e.g., that the
person is anxious, extraverted, liberal, or the like. Subjectivity,
in sum, is natural behavior and Q methodology is its natural
science (Brown, 2006; Midgley & Delprato, 2017).
Q methodology is also to be distinguished in part
from cognitive psychology, phenomenology, and related
systems of inquiry to the extent that they approach subjectivity reflectively, not as it is lived by the person
living it (i.e., from that person’s vantage point), but as
an object of observation, thereby transforming it. As
Feyaerts and Vanheule (2015) note, strategies that try
to view subjectivity by reflecting upon it as if from
the outside are always a step too late because the essence of subjectivity disappears the moment it is looked
upon as an object: it’s like turning a flashlight on in
hopes of catching a glimpse of what a dark room looks
like. Kierkegaard was making a similar point when he
remarked that it is one thing to prove the existence of
God and quite another to fall to one’s knees and give
thanks. To engage in the one is to preclude the other.
When an individual is performing a Q sort, however,
what is at issue is not reflection, but expression, i.e., the
person is caught in the act of expressing a viewpoint (or
perspective, or attitude, etc., however this event might be
labeled) in the form of a Q sort.5 The Q sorter is not being
introspective or inwardly consultative, but is overtly engaging in self-referential utterances of the kind exemplified
in the studies above, namely:
&
&
&
&
&
5
“The first verse of the poem is vivid and original.”
“We should assign graduate assistants to faculty who publish the most.”
“I have to trust both my gut and know-how to be the most
effective supervisor I can be.”
“I am more willing to try new approaches to teaching.”
“I do not intentionally seek out solitude.”
Teo (2017) does not approve of the term perspective, asserting that “understanding subjectivity as a perspective is too ‘mental’ and that there are good
reasons to refer to subjectivity as a first-person standpoint” (p. 283), but this is
only semantics. There is nothing especially mental about a perspective, or
vantage point, which is comparable to a frame of reference, or coordinate
system, in relativity theory (Brown & Taylor, 1973). And if the person is asked
to “provide a Q sort as you think your spouse would perform it,” the Q sort
then becomes third person.
Subjectivity is irreducible and not subject to reductionism
of a psychoanalytic, social constructivist, Marxian, cognitive,
or any other kind. Or, if it is so reduced, it is transformed as a
phenomenon––even worse, is killed off in the course of its
dissection––and becomes a defense mechanism or a social
construction or a socioeconomic fiction (such as false consciousness) or a cognitive bias or a manifestation of some
other more fundamental force and not a person’s own point
of view at all and consequently unworthy of examination as
behavior to be inspected and understood in its own right.
Social scientists who claim (or imply) that what a person says
is of value only insofar as it implicates or is indicative of
variables or dimensions of greater intrinsic importance––and
that the latter alone are of scientific value––do not appear to
realize that what they are saying is self-referential and itself
part of a concourse of subjective communicability in which
they are fully involved, and furthermore seem to assume that
they are somehow different from those whom they study.
As far as Q methodology itself is concerned, it is difficult to
imagine another approach that stands on firmer scientific
grounds insofar as the study of subjectivity is concerned. It
is founded on concourses most frequently gathered from the
mouths of persons who are expressing themselves, the selection of Q samples is based on modern advances in experimental design, the Q sort enables participants to take for granted
their own meanings and assign their own saliences, and the
mechanics of correlation and factor analysis assists in bringing
the operant structures to light for consideration (Stephenson,
1977; the range and shape of the Q-sort distribution are the
only arbitrary impositions, but these have no impact on the
subsequent factors). In contrast, devices such as projective
tests permit persons the freedom to speak their own minds,
but what they have to say is then usually taken by the scientist
to be indicative of something else (e.g., nAchievement,
nNurturance, and the like), and even more open-ended strategies, such as discourse and narrative analysis, typically end up
with the investigator imposing categories onto the raw verbiage that has been collected or looking for specific effects,
such as status inequities among participants or evidence of
specific emotions or cognitions (Hepburn & Jackson, 2009).
In other instances, the narrative is rearranged by the investigator in arbitrary ways. Willis (2019), for instance, seeks to
construct “composite narratives” by piecing together snippets
from several actual narratives, the aim being to tell a single
story that subsumes the others, but the piecing together could
have been accomplished in a variety of different ways. Willis’s
logico-categorical strategy finds its parallel in Q methodology
in the application of factor analysis, which also results in composites (Q factors), but composites based on nonarbitrary
combinations whose functional similarities can be vouchsafed. Unlike Willis’s categories, the factors in Q methodology serve like x-ray plates that reveal the structural features in
the communicability of individuals, groups, and cultures.
Psychol Rec
Availability of Data and Materials Data on decision making and scientific
creativity are in the possession of the authors of those studies cited. Data
on poetic interpretation and program evaluation are in the possession of
the author. Data on the single case (on solitude) are unavailable due to
confidentiality.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of Interest
interest.
The author declares that there is no conflict of
Informed Consent Informed consent was obtained from all individual
participants included in the studies.
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